es
musters strong, and connoisseurs, without so much remarking their
imperfections, carefully note their promise.

A month after the opening of the British Institution, three galleries
become patent on the same morning: the Old Water Colour, in Pall-Mall
East, the New Water Colour, in Pall-Mall West, and a still more
recently founded society, called, somewhat pompously, the National
Institution of Fine Arts. These are mainly composed of dissenters from
the other associations--gentlemen who conceive that they have been
ill-treated by Hanging Committees, and a large class of juvenile but
promising artists, who resort to the less crowded institutions in the
hope of there meeting with better places for their works than in the
older and more established bodies. The two water-colour galleries are
both highly favoured exhibitions, and present works of an importance
quite equal to those of the Academy itself. Water-colour painting is
indeed a national branch of art in England. Neither French, Germans,
nor Italians, can presume for a moment to cope with us in the matter
of _aquarelles_. They have no notion of the power of the medium, of
the strong and rich effects it is capable of producing, and the
transparency of the tints which a great water-colour artist can lay
on. Nearly twenty years ago, there was but one water-colour society;
but increasing numbers, and the usual artistic feuds, produced a
partly natural, partly hostile, separation. The ladies and gentlemen
who withdrew were mainly figure painters; those who stayed were mainly
landscape artists; and thus it happens, that while in the new society
you are principally attracted by historic and _genre_ groups and,
scenes, in the old you are fascinated by landscape and city pictures
of the very highest order of art. The painters, too, you observe, are
very industrious. The fact is, they can work more quickly in water
than in oil. Copley Fielding will perhaps exhibit a score of
landscapes, blazing with summer sunshine; David Cox, half as
many--stern and rugged in tone and style; George Tripp will have
painted his fresh river and meadow scenes by the dozen; and the two
brothers Callum will each have poured in old Gothic streets and
squares, and ships in calm and storm, which catch your eye scores of
times upon the walls. As in the other society, many of the finest
'bits' contributed by the water-colourists are not much above
miniature size. The screens on which these gems are